Website redesign and migration

The Brief.

The New Mandala website has been a prominent voice of bold and outspoken commentary concerning Southeast Asia for well over a decade. With thousands of articles and millions of views the website is the largest individual web property to come out of the Australian National University.

With such a long and active history came a website that had a legacy stretching back to a time before the widespread adoption of mobile devices to browse the internet; New Mandala was in need of an upgrade. Code and Visual were contracted to manage a complete front end overhaul of the site, as well as to strengthen the identity of New Mandala in both a visual sense and by migrating it to a new standalone domain.

New domain
Site migration
New visual aesthetic
Mobile responsive layout
Agile development
Ongoing support

The Solution.

We took the approach with the redesign that the legacy of the old site would not dictate the outcomes in terms of limiting the user experience or the effectiveness of the design.

We were able to create a backwards-compatible, yet highly curatable and modern front end, based upon an upgraded and customised WordPress CMS instance.

With a strong incorporation of imagery, our design increased the visual impact of the site, to match the dynamic and unapologetic content created by the contributors and editorial staff.

By The Numbers

The Outcome.

With the migration to the new server and domain, New Mandala celebrated 10 years with a strengthened and revitalised identity that gave more autonomy to the editors, and the potential to have an even stronger voice within the space.

Through our ongoing support we've been able to help New Mandala be agile in adjusting to audience behaviour, as well as reacting to international developments by creating new editorial initiatives that engage with users more immediately, and to present content in a more effective manner.